Brooklyn Mirage is each a paradise and a paradox.
Unparalleled programming and manufacturing intertwined with some severe pitfalls have created a notion of the storied EDM venue that seesaws between excellence and dysfunction. However with new management on the helm, 2025 may very well be a turning level.
First, the great. There’s no denying that the New York venue’s curation is top-notch. Dance music’s greatest artists—like Carl Cox, John Summit, Keinemusik, Black Espresso and Swedish Home Mafia—typically take the stage at Brooklyn Mirage. Report labels and types with thriving communities—like Anjunadeep, Boiler Room, Mayan Warrior and All Day I Dream—curate reveals there too. And rewarding the truest of revelers, dusk-to-dawn reveals are hosted usually, spurring dawn units in a sprawling setting that few stateside venues can pull off.
Plus, the venue’s manufacturing rivals pageant phases. The sound system is stellar and Brooklyn Mirage’s gargantuan, 300-foot, 14K LED video wall is a spectacle.
But it surely’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Experiences in recent times of operational mismanagement and security issues have soured the venue’s relationship with longstanding patrons. Social media is rampant with accounts of aggressive safety, oversold reveals and confiscation of Narcan, a life-saving treatment that’s broadly thought of a important hurt discount instrument within the dance music neighborhood. A pair of mysterious deaths close to Brooklyn Mirage in 2023 additionally solid an extended shadow over the venue’s repute, fueling requires larger accountability and improved security measures.
Josh Wyatt, the brand new CEO of Avant Gardner—the multi-venue advanced that homes Brooklyn Mirage—is set to sort out the venue’s most urgent issues with significant change.
“Belief, transparency and accountability are the three key phrases in my ethical compass,” Wyatt tells EDM.com in a sweeping interview. “I’ve pushed these three phrases down into the fiber of the corporate to make sure that staff perceive that these are key expectations I’ve as CEO.”
It’s pure to be skeptical about lofty statements. “So what does this all imply in apply?” Wyatt himself segues, increasing on a number of concrete methods to rebuild belief with patrons who could have had unfavourable experiences at Brooklyn Mirage previously.
“We’ve heard suggestions that the way in which safety interacts with followers is simply too draconian,” he says. “I believe that comes right down to coaching and a dedication to vary the corporate tradition.”
To handle this suggestions, Wyatt plans to increase Brooklyn Mirage’s visitor ambassador program and have all workers endure hospitality coaching. This community-based strategy to visitor relations ought to translate to extra nice experiences with workers as soon as Brooklyn Mirage reopens later this 12 months, he says.
“It is one factor to know the technical particulars of the venue, nevertheless it’s one other factor to really be educated with a tradition of hospitality: welcoming folks, actually eager to be sure that friends really feel protected, really feel heard and are given the chance to have a good time.”
Muccitas
Aside from hospitality coaching, Wyatt mentions that every one workers has already undergone coaching on hurt discount, overdose prevention, anti-harassment, sexual violence prevention, CPR/AED, bystander intervention and Narcan administration. Concerning previous reviews of workers confiscating Narcan, he affirms that the medication is permitted into the venue and that every one workers has been made conscious of the coverage. Nonetheless, Wyatt stresses that patrons in want of assist ought to hunt down educated medical professionals who might be onsite at each present.
But it surely’s not simply the way in which wherein workers members work together with followers that has confirmed to be an albatross for Brooklyn Mirage—it’s additionally the way in which they current themselves.
“When somebody is available in and sees safety in quasi-military gear, it actually sends a message, and that message is certainly not one among openness and positivity,” Wyatt admits. “Our objective could be just like the U.S. Secret Service or Federal Air Marshals. There’s quite a lot of stuff that occurs behind the scenes that you just by no means see, but it’s protected for politicians to provide a speech, and it’s additionally protected for us to fly.”
Wyatt emphasizes there’s nuance in prioritizing safety whereas sustaining a welcoming environment. “It’s nearly like being a swan. We’re paddling furiously beneath, however all you must see is a hospitality-forward firm.”
On the subject of security outdoors the venue’s partitions, Brooklyn Mirage is investing in enhancements, Wyatt says, to “lighting, fencing, perimeter sight traces, way-finding, signage to subways and rideshare, and mobile phone service—by way of lastly getting the best permits and licenses to put in extra mobile phone towers.”
These modifications ought to make a giant distinction because the streets surrounding Brooklyn Mirage are comparatively quiet with restricted residential presence. The instant neighborhood contains a number of blocks of warehouses, factories and business buildings with sparse road lighting and low pedestrian site visitors.
The venue may also proceed working with each NYPD and personal safety to patrol the encompassing neighborhood after reveals finish, policing unlicensed drivers from selecting up inebriated patrons. Although Wyatt states that there are authorized and technical limits to what they will do as soon as somebody exits the venue.
“It’s extra of a neighborhood or neighborhood drawback,” he provides. “I’d problem everybody round us as neighbors to work collectively collectively—whether or not it is different nightlife operators within the space, property house owners or politicians—we have to work collectively to make the neighborhood a extra welcoming place.”
Aside from hospitality and security, capability is among the greatest criticisms of Brooklyn Mirage. Patrons typically report that reveals really feel overcrowded and oversold, typically elevating issues about potential hearth hazards.
Wyatt views capability throughout two axes: technical (the format of the dancefloor) and purposeful (the variety of folks on the dancefloor).
On the technical entrance, “there might be no obstacles, columns or manufacturing tents on the dancefloor,” Wyatt says. “That is a quite simple however profound repair that we expect will enhance crowd movement.”
In case you’ve been to Brooklyn Mirage, you’ve in all probability skilled bottlenecks across the metal boundaries of the massive manufacturing tent in the back of the dancefloor or across the towering, obstructive columns unfold throughout the dancefloor. Eliminating these buildings will open up considerably more room for dancing. Wyatt additionally guarantees new areas with direct sight traces to the stage.
Bryan Kwon
In actual fact, holding true to its identify, Brooklyn Mirage as we all know it’s going to disappear. The area is being rebuilt from the bottom up, and the rebuild will end in a bigger dancefloor and dynamic manufacturing design.
“We won’t absolutely disclose what we’re doing, however I can let you know that while you stroll into Brooklyn Mirage for the primary time, you are going to see a set design that can blow you away,” Wyatt emphasizes. “Then while you come again two weeks or two months later, it is going to look completely completely different. The kind of know-how that we’re designing to have the ability to permit us to try this is bespoke and has by no means been accomplished earlier than—I believe it’s fairly mind-blowing.”
Like it or hate it, Brooklyn Mirage will sundown its signature video wall. Wyatt favors flexibility in stage design and thinks the video wall creates a set standpoint that restricts optionality. “We’ve been flirting with new manufacturing components forward of the 2025 Mirage season,” he says. “Considered one of our first checks was this kind of 360° pulsating visible rig that we put up for Rampa on the Nice Corridor in December.”
“The second space of technical movement is how folks get out and in of the venue and the way folks get between the completely different sections throughout the venue,” Wyatt continues. “With the brand new venue design, we have addressed all strain factors to make the visitor expertise loads simpler and extra intuitive when it comes to flowing by way of the venue. As a result of it isn’t nearly dancing, it is also concerning the capability to get to the exits, bars and loos shortly.”
Apart from streamlined movement, Wyatt says the revamped Brooklyn Mirage may also have “new areas the place folks can peel out of the primary dancefloor, hang around and have significantly better experiences and aspect quests across the whole campus.” In case you’ve ever been to the venue and located your self stumped by an aggressive safety guard telling you that the elevated flooring are closed off, Wyatt needs to repair that. He acknowledges that space restrictions weren’t all the time clearly communicated by workers previously, however enhanced signage and hospitality coaching will change that.
Alive Protection
On the subject of the burning query of whether or not Brooklyn Mirage oversells reveals, Wyatt says he needs to be each “clear and just a little combative” in his response.
“I’ve seen the numbers. Prior to now for 2023 and earlier than, I believe there was overselling,” he reveals. “In 2024, there was a cap on the variety of tickets that have been offered. I’ve all the info and apart from perhaps one or two reveals, there was by no means overselling of tickets. So I acknowledge that buyer suggestions that it has been overcrowded, however since I got here on board, I stated regardless of the venue capability is, you can’t promote one ticket past that.”
“Notion is every thing,” he provides. “We now have to speak successfully with all of the constituents that contact the corporate—distributors, staff, neighbors, politicians and naturally followers. We’ve been placing out communications in writing, on social media, and in individual to inform folks what we’re going to do, present those that we have listened to their suggestions and to supply an answer to any kind of problem that individuals have confronted.”
In case you scroll by way of Brooklyn Mirage’s Instagram web page, you’ll discover a drastic distinction in how they’re participating with followers. Any criticism is met with openness and positivity. Earlier than Wyatt joined the corporate, responses to feedback on social media have been non-existent.
“We have to have an lively dialogue the place you acknowledge a buyer has had both a optimistic expertise or a unfavourable expertise, and touch upon that to both give reinforcement to the optimistic second or a service path to recovering from a unfavourable second,” Wyatt explains. “The staff has been incentivized to be very engaged on social media.”
Alongside Web Promoter Rating, a standardized methodology for benchmarking and capturing suggestions within the hospitality and nightlife trade, Brooklyn Mirage will collate buyer sentiment on social media to measure the success of its new insurance policies on bettering the visitor expertise.
Wyatt’s deal with visitor satisfaction stems from over 20 years of expertise within the hospitality trade.
“I’ve all the time been deeply motivated and impressed by artistic firms which have a significant neighborhood,” he says. “Manufacturers that may outline, assist and develop a neighborhood are manufacturers that sometimes stand the check of time. They could undergo ups and downs, however the ones I believe that survive and finally thrive over years and extra importantly many years are ones that perceive their neighborhood and know how one can foster a long-term view of that neighborhood. I’ve all the time aligned myself to firms that observe that mantra.”
Wyatt’s most up-to-date tenure as CEO of social membership NeueHouse and its sister firm, the pictures museum Fotografiska, was rooted in community-building. NeuHouse’s cultural programming (artist talks, movie screenings, creator dinners), inside design (communal workspaces and lounges) and membership have been designed to foster a vibrant neighborhood of creators, inventors and thought leaders.
His previous experiences as president of Equinox Lodges and co-founder of Generator Hostels share related neighborhood underpinnings. “Once I began Generator—again when the phrase Millennial was the equal of what Gen Z is at this time—nobody understood the idea of bringing collectively high-level inside design, cultural curation and music into the funds journey trade,” he says. “We did that with Generator.”
A part of Wyatt’s efforts with Generator additionally included an early discovery of now-global music broadcasting platform Boiler Room. “We have been the primary to ever carry Boiler Room on the highway,” he recollects. “We discovered them in a storage in Shoreditch again in 2008 and thought that they have been unbelievable and that they need to journey. So we have been the primary ones to ever truly stream a touring Boiler Room. It occurred in Berlin, again in 2010, and was the primary contact level I had seeing the ability of digital music with a communal, tribal vibe—folks coming collectively to expertise a profound sense of pleasure and emotion.”
To today, Wyatt nonetheless champions rising expertise, pointing to Keinemusik supporting Desiree and Black Espresso working with Shimza as nice examples. In flip, he goals to make use of Brooklyn Mirage as a lever the place established acts can amplify rising skills, a chance he referred to as “among the best components about this job.”
“One of many issues that I am intrigued by is this idea of established artists or platforms which can be additionally actually, actually good at growing expertise beneath them and elevating that expertise, whether or not it is instantly on a label or simply as buddies.”
Brooklyn Mirage kicks off its 2025 season on Might 1st. Yow will discover out extra by way of the venue’s web site.
